The photographer, can show of himself on the moon, as a reflection in his colleague's
visor.

The date was 20 July 1969. It is already a quarter of a century ago. Most middleaged
people still remember exactly where they were when the television pictures from the
moon were first broadcast around the world. Over 500 million spectators followed
this historic direct transmission.

Neil Armstrong, commander of the Eagle, was the first man to set foot on the moon.
He was shortly followed by the pilot, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. One of the many
memorable images taken at the time was that of Edwin Aldrin, a solitary man on an
alien planet.

Since then this image has been printed millions of times in thousands of contexts.
Among others it appeared on the covers of those international publications, TIME
and National Geographic.

Take another look at the photograph. The man stands in the centre, above his head
the infinite blackness of space, the moon's horizon leans suggestively, the sloping
plane continues through the gilded visor, which reflects the scattered instruments,
the photographer, the subject's shadow and the moon lander.

Neil Armstrong took this photograph using a Hasselblad Data Camera, the moon camera,
a modified Hasselblad 500EL.

The picture was taken almost directly into the sun, yet is still perfectly exposed.
It is sharply focused and the colours are brilliant, despite the harsh light. In
the foreground we see footprints, while part of the moon lander chassis protrudes
into the bottom right corner. This is the only shot in which both astronauts appear.
It is the only photograph that Neil Armstrong can show of himself on the moon, as
a reflection in his colleague's visor.

If you look at the photo closely you will see several hairline crosses. These are
produced by the "Reseau plate" that was built into the camera and thereby
transformed it into a hand-held measuring camera. Such cameras are usually much larger
or fitted with glass plates instead of film, and are mostly used in cartography.

A Tradition in Space

Once Apollo 11 had returned to Earth, the films had been processed and the images
transmitted all over the world, the camera became just as famous as the history-making
astronauts. Since then, not a single manned American space mission has been launched
without a Hasselblad camera on board.

However Hasselblad came into the picture long before that. When a few of the space
pioneers sat down to sketch out how a practical space camera should look one of them
had suddenly exclaimed: "That's starting to look like my Hasselblad". The
rest took him seriously and visited a nearby photographic store in the space capital,
Houston in Texas. There they bought a Hasselblad
500C with a standard Planar f/2.8, 80 mm lens. The camera was stripped down to
reduce its weight and make it simple to operate. In fact so much was removed that
it would be no exaggeration to say they created the world's most expensive box camera.

When the films from the first journey were developed everyone was surprised at the
excellent image quality. Suddenly, photography became one of the major duties of
the astronauts

The landing of the Apollo 11 on the moon
broke a lot of legends, stories and fantasies that for centuries associated with
this onced mysterious planet ...

Development Takes Off

When the Mercury project succeeded the Gemini project cameras began to be modified
to meet NASA specif~cations, no longer by the astronauts in Houston themselves, but
by engineers at the Hasselblad factory in Gothenburg.

NASA also set up its own service department, which could take a camera apart and
service it. This had to be done after every 4,000 exposures.

However, unlike Hasselblad's engineers, the NASA
engineers were unable to take a camera body off the production line and modify it
to create a purpose-built space camera.

This not only involved removing the covering from the camera but also painting the
camera and lens barrel black to reduce the risk of stray reflections.

Mechanical modifications also had to be made. The mirror and secondary shutter were
removed and the focusing screen for the reflex viewfinder was replaced with an opaque
plate. Certain shutter functions were unnecessary because the lens would remain stopped
down between shots. As a result the mechanism that opened the shutter on cocking
could also be removed.

At the camera factory in Gothenburg a new group was set up solely to modify and develop
cameras for NASA. Once the first concrete specifications for a moon camera were laid
down work began in earnest. At its peak, six people were employed full time on work
for NASA.

The operating controls of the camera were redesigned so that it could easily be handled
by an astronaut, despite the clumsy suits they had to wear while on the moon.